A Brief Chat with Simon Bairu

Oct 11, 2010

By Peter GambacciniSimon Bairu, 27, set the Canadian 10,000-meter record of 27:23.63 this spring and will make his 26.2-mile debut at the ING New York City Marathon on November 7 along with Tim Nelson, who was his teammate at the University of Wisconsin and is now part of the same Oregon Track Club group coached by their former college mentor Jerry Schumacher.

In this build-up to the ING New York City Marathon, are Tim Nelson and you working out together and doing the same stuff?SB: Yeah, we do all our workouts together. It's kind of cool. We've been in training camp (together) for about eight years now. Nothing's really changed.Some of these professional groups form with the idea of creating marathoners. When yours was formed, did Jerry Schumacher make it clear that there was a timetable that would lead toward your doing a marathon?SB: Yes and no. Jerry had indicated to me, even when I was a senior in college, that the marathon was eventually going to be my event. But at the same time, he wasn't really pushing that idea. He just let me mature mentally and physically to the point where I wanted to do the marathon. For the longest time, I was kind of intimidated by the marathon and I didn't want to run it. I thought it was too daunting for me. But eventually, I started to warm up to it and we started doing some mileage and testing out how my body would react to stints of high mileage training. It just got to a point where we said "okay, we're ready for the marathon," and that's where we are today.Click here for the full interview. (Photo of Simon Bairu by Andrew McClanahan, PhotoRun)

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